In the field of microelectronics, multiple integrated circuit chips are often electrically interconnected in order to achieve a desired system circuit configuration. Such interconnections typically are achieved using a conventional printed circuit board in which each integrated circuit is individually packaged, for example, in dual in-line packages (DIP) or surface mount packages. In many circuit applications, such conventional packaging and interconnection methodologies work well, however, as complex circuit systems require higher performance in terms of speed, such conventional methods have shortcomings.
One disadvantage of conventional integrated circuit packages is illustrated in prior art FIG. 1, designated at reference numeral 10. The package 10 includes an integrated circuit chip 12 having a top surface 14 upon which active circuitry 16 and bond pads 18 are formed. The chip 12 is placed upon a mounting portion of a lead frame (not shown) and typically either solder-mounted or epoxy-mounted thereon. The chip 12 is electrically connected to a plurality of leads 20 (which are the lead frame pins which mount to the circuit board) via lead wires 22. Because the lead wires 22 must not exceed predetermined lengths to avoid "collapsed loops" and since lead wires 22 should not cross one another for reliability purposes, the location of the various bond pads 18 is limited, which in some cases results in an inefficient layout of the active circuitry 16 to accommodate the bond pad locations.
In addition, the lead wires 22 are typically connected to the bond pads 18 and the lead wires 22 using a ball-bonding technique in which pressure is applied to the bond pads 18 when forming the electrical connection. In some cases, such pressure can lead to stresses in the circuitry which may compromise the circuit reliability; thus the active circuitry 16 is often not formed under the bond pads 18 as illustrated in FIG. 1, thus further reducing the efficiency of the circuit layout. Further, the lead wires 22 undesirably provide a resistive path between the bond pads 18 and the leads 20 which result in a small, variable voltage drops across the wires 22 and concurrent IR type heating. More significantly, the lead wires 22 have an inductance associated therewith which degrades the circuit performance of the active circuitry 16, particularly as the performance speed of the circuitry is increased.
Another disadvantage of traditional circuit packaging methodologies is illustrated in prior art FIG. 2. In FIG. 2, a portion of a circuit board substrate 30 has two integrated circuit packages 32 and 34 mounted thereon. Selective pins 36 of the packages are interconnected using printed conductive lines 38, for example, as shown. Note that due to the circuit configuration, the conductive lines 38 are not of an equal length. At low circuit speeds, such length variations are not important, however, in certain high circuit applications, such variation in the lengths of the conductive lines 38 result in a timing skew between various control signals which must be taken into account. One method of addressing such timing skew is to make all the conductive lines 38 between the chips 32 and 34 the same length, which necessarily results in an increase in the length of some of the lines and complicates the layout of the board 30. Alternatively, timing skew is addressed by employing synchronization circuits at the input of the various circuits and the chips 32 and 34. Such a solution, however, increases the circuit complexity and hinders circuit performance. Clearly then, there has been a need to improve the prior art circuit packaging and interconnection methodologies for high performance circuit systems.
One solution which was developed to address the above limitations in the prior art is the use of solder bumps in a controlled, collapse chip connection (C4) structure (also often called solder bump or flip-chip bonding), as illustrated in prior art FIG. 3a at reference numeral 40. The C4 structure 40 includes a base substrate 42, for example, a circuit socket having bond pads 44 located thereon. Solder bumps 46 are then placed on the bond pads 50 of a second (or top) substrate 48 which is oriented face-down (ie., flip-chip), aligned and brought into contact with the bond pads 44. Electrical interconnections between the bond pads 44 and 50 are formed by heating the solder bumps 46 to a reflow temperature, at which point the solder flows; subsequent cooling results in a fixed, electrically conductive joint to be formed between the bond pads 44 and 50.
The base substrate 42 may be a circuit socket, or alternatively may constitute an integrated circuit board. In the case of a circuit socket, a female-type socket 49a interfaces with an integrated circuit board 49b, as illustrated in prior art FIG. 3b. If, however, the base substrate 42 itself is the circuit board, such C4 connection structures can be implemented on both the top surface and bottom surface thereof, as illustrated in prior art FIG. 4. In such instances, a second semiconductor substrate 52 may similarly be oriented face-down with respect to the base substrate 42 and coupled thereto using solder bumps 46.
The C4 structure of prior art FIGS. 3a and 3b overcome several disadvantages of the connection methodologies of prior art FIGS. 1 and 2. Initially, C4 bonding eliminates the lead wires 22 and their associated resistance and inductance. Furthermore, eliminating the lead wires 22 increases the freedom a designer has to lay out the circuitry on the chip more efficiently. In addition, C4 bonding greatly reduces the conductive interconnection paths between the respective circuits, thus improving the speed and reducing the timing skew therebetween. Lastly, because the ball-bonding attachment technique is avoided, significantly less stress is placed on the bond pads during connection, which allows active circuitry to be formed under the pads. This additional level of flexibility allows the circuitry to be laid out without regard to the bond pad locations and further allows the bond pad locations above the active circuitry to be located in an optimized fashion to directly couple with circuitry on another substrate. Therefore the bond pads 50 may be located anywhere on the substrate 48 as illustrated in prior art FIG. 5, without the need to form such interconnections on peripheral edges of the die.
The C4 or flip-chip bonding technique discussed above does provide advantages over other prior art packaging and connection methodologies, however, the C4 connection structure does have an number of disadvantages. Typically, C4 connections are used with complex integrated circuits such as microprocessors. With such complex circuit designs, it is important to verify the design. Such design verification is performed with software via design simulations and also with hardware, by subjecting the circuit to direct testing after being fabricated.
Direct testing of the circuit may be performed in a variety of ways. One form of direct testing is called electron beam probing (i.e., e-beam) which provides the ability to evaluate electrical potentials on the die surface providing an electrical contact thereto. The electron beam probes any visible metal line of the active circuitry and the impact of the high energy electrons of the electron beam results in the emission of secondary electrons from the die surface. The secondary electrons are detected and variations in the energy of the emitted secondary electrons are monitored. Such energy variations are proportional to the surface potential of the circuitry and therefore result from the propagation of electrical signals through the circuitry. Thus, the electron probing technique may be used to determine whether the circuitry is operating as expected in response to the I/O stimulus provided by a tester.
Another common circuit analysis tool is the focused ion beam (FIB) probing or milling technique. FIB employs an ion beam of a heavy element (e.g., gallium) which is targeted on the die surface. Because the ions are heavy enough to remove atoms as opposed to merely removing electrons, FIB probing may be used to modify the surface structure of the circuitry on the die. Therefore FIB may be used to perform "microsurgery" on test dies, for example, by altering a metallization pattern thereon.
Yet another common design verification tool is an electrical probing system. With an electrical prober, one or more probes are brought into contact with the die surface upon which the active circuitry lies. Using the probes, electrical signals may be applied thereto and both parametric and functional tests may be performed at the bond pads. In addition, the probes may contact various conductive lines and perform analysis on various isolated circuit portions which may otherwise be isolated by analyzing the circuit performance at the bond pads.
Electron beam, FIB probing and electrical probe testing have become important tools and steps in the integrated circuit design procedure. The C4 or flip-chip design structure, however, has severely limited the applicability of these types of probing or test techniques. Because the flip-chip connections employ solder bumps on bond pads which reside on the active or top surface of the device, the device must be mounted face-down on the substrate to achieve the electrical contact thereto. Thus, when connected, the active or top region of the dies is now blocked and is inaccessible to a probing beam or test probes for design analysis or verification.
It is an object of the present invention to overcome the above disadvantages as well as other disadvantages associated with C4 or flip-chip type connections.